43 primates on the loose in South Carolina town after escaping from research lab
Yemassee Police Department via Meta
(YEMASSEE, S.C.) — At least 43 primates were on the loose Thursday in a South Carolina town where authorities “strongly advised” residents to keep their doors and windows locked after the animals escaped from a research laboratory.
“At this point, none have been captured,” the Yemassee Police Department said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Traps were being set around the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, where the Rhesus Macaque monkeys escaped en masse around 9:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Yemassee police officers were searching for the furry fugitives, which can grow to up to 21 inches tall and weigh 17 pounds, using thermal imaging cameras, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” the sheriff’s office said. “If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them.”
Police said they are working with staff of Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center to find the escapees.
“We want to assure the community that there is no health risk associated with these animals,” police said.
Representatives of the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center could not be immediately contacted for comment.
According to its website, Alpha Genesis “provides the highest quality nonhuman primate products and bio-research services world-wide,” including serum, plasma, whole blood and tissue samples.
(NEW YORK) — A massive black market scheme that diverted and resold critical prescription drugs potentially put unsuspecting patients in the path of harm and bilked the U.S. government out of millions of dollars, according to federal charging documents unsealed Wednesday.
The illicit operation was allegedly led, aided and abetted by multiple pharmacy owners and employees in Puerto Rico, as well as a medical facility procurement worker who “used his position” to steal legitimate medications from the warehouse before they hit the market and then resold them at a “steep discount” to individual pharmacy owners, according to an indictment.
The 27 people indicted in the scheme include a onetime Olympic basketball player, officials at the U.S. Department of Health’s Office of Inspector General told ABC News. Of those indicted, one has already pleaded guilty, officials said.
Eddin Orlando Santiago-Cordero, aka “Guayacan,” allegedly served as one of many unlicensed wholesale distributors, according to an indictment. Decades before facing charges in the scheme, he was on Puerto Rico’s Olympic roster, a spokesperson for the HHS-OIG told ABC News.
Early Wednesday, federal authorities arrested some of the individuals allegedly involved in the operation across Puerto Rico and in Florida, the HHS-OIG spokesperson said.
More than 100 different drugs — many of grave necessity to the people who take them — were part of the drug diversion scheme, the charging documents said. These drugs include multiple HIV+ medications, insulin, thyroid medication, antipsychotic / schizophrenia medication, alcohol and opioid addiction medication, blood thinners, asthma and COPD medications, IV antibiotics to treat serious infections like meningitis or sepsis, hormone replacement therapy estrogen, malaria medication, popular obesity and diabetes drugs including Ozempic and Mounjaro, as well as medication used for erectile dysfunction and enlarged prostate.
Those drugs were snatched before reaching retail, often stored in resealable plastic baggies without markings — and importantly, without the conditions needed to maintain some of the meds’ safety and effectiveness, the charging documents say. One example cited in the court documents is insulin, which must be refrigerated.
“It becomes difficult, if not impossible, for regulators such as the FDA, law enforcement, or end-users to know whether the prescription drug package actually contains the correct drug or the correct dose” once the meds are diverted, court documents said. “Law enforcement officers, regulators, and end users would not know whether the prescription drug was altered, stored in improper conditions, or had its potency adversely affected.”
Nearly $21 million in fraudulent funds — just shy of $14 million of that from ill-gotten gains selling misbranded and diverted prescriptions and more than $7.6 million of that from false Medicare and Medicaid claims — were netted in the alleged scheme, court documents allege.
The alleged operation is part of an “alarming” and a “growing” trend, HHS-OIG’s special agent in charge of the New York Regional Office Naomi Gruchacz told ABC News in an exclusive interview ahead of the takedown she helped lead.
“The motivation oftentimes to conduct this type of scheme is for greed,” Gruchacz said. “They’re making a financial profit. The greed takes over and even though the community is put at risk, that’s overlooked — even though oftentimes it’s happening in the same community that these healthcare providers should be servicing.”
Since syndicates like these operate outside official channels’ guardrails it’s not only near-impossible to track if the drugs are downgraded or even what they purport to be — it’s also hard to track where exactly the diverted prescriptions go, and into whose hands, an HHS-OIG spokesperson said.
Co-conspirators of the operation “sold prescription drugs in resealable clear plastic bags without any labels and adequate directions,” paid each other in cash, and sent shipments of diverted drugs via the United States Postal Service “as well as private and commercial carriers using fictitious names and addresses,” the charging documents said.
“We have seen in other investigations that sometimes the medication is sold on legitimate, wholesale distribution websites,” Gruchacz said.
Syndicates like this one have at times collected drugs from patients who ration and sell their own prescriptions for a kickback, she said.
“It is patient harm that we’re talking about, both on the front end – the patient that should be taking the medication, and on the back end if a patient is unknowingly receiving a diverted medication,” Gruchacz said. “We don’t know how it’s being stored. We don’t know if it’s expired.”
Attorney information for Santiago-Cordero and other defendants was not immediately available.
(PHOENIX, Ariz) — A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy who was violently arrested by two Phoenix police officers in August said he tried to alert the officers that he was deaf before they repeatedly punched and tasered him for an alleged crime he had been falsely accused of by another suspect.
Records show that the incident occurred when officers were dispatched to investigate a report of a man causing problems and wouldn’t leave a Circle K convenience store, according to ABC affiliate in Phoenix KNXV-TV.
According to police records, the original description of the suspect was for a white man who had been creating a disturbance in the store, but that man later claimed he was assaulted by a Black man and pointed to Tyron McAlpin – a claim that was disputed by store employees and surveillance video, KNXV-TV reported.
“The officers took me down … And I told them, I was trying to get to my ears to tell them I can’t hear, I can’t hear, pointing to my ears,” McAlpin said through an interpreter as he used sign language, according to KNXV-TV. “I was trying to gesture, and that’s when the cops grabbed me. (I was) trying to show, hey I can’t hear, pointing to my ears, and they grabbed me.”
McAlpin gave his account in the hospital to a medical worker after his arrest, according to KNXV-TV. Two police officers are seen present in the body camera video during the medical examination.
The Phoenix man is seen in the footage telling medical workers he’s having trouble seeing out of his left eye and complaining of neck and chest pain, according to KNXV-TV.
“White male, 20s, grey shirt, blue shorts,” Ben Harris, one of the officers involved in detaining McAlpin, could be heard saying repeatedly to himself on the way to the call, according to the footage.
The newly released video appears to show that Harris knew the suspect was a white male.
In body-worn camera footage recorded after the arrest, employees at the store told law enforcement that the white male had gotten into a physical altercation the night before, according to KNXV-TV. The staff in the footage explains that McAlpin comes to the store regularly, holds the door for people and was trying to help the employees get the man out of the store.
Harris originally told another officer at the scene that he believed he broke a bone in his hand after striking the Phoenix man in the head, according to body camera footage obtained by ABC News in October.
Harris told a different story in court during an October hearing.
“At one point, when I was trying to regain control of his arm, following his initial swings, punch swings, it appears that these fingers were jammed in his forearm, and bent over all the way to my palm,” Harris testified, according to KNXV-TV.
The two Phoenix police officers who were involved in the arrest were placed on paid administrative leave in October amid an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department confirmed to ABC News.
ABC News reached out to the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a union representing the officers, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
The union’s president, Darrell Kriplean, previously defended the officers’ actions in a statement to ABC News, saying that people should know what to do if uniformed officers approach and that the officers, who did now know McAlpin was deaf at the time, had to force him to comply.
McAlpin was initially charged with felony assault and resisting arrest following the Aug. 19 encounter with Phoenix police, but the charges were dropped on Oct. 17.
The decision to drop the charges against McAlpin was announced by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, who said in a statement that she personally reviewed the case after a member of the local chapter of the NAACP expressed concern over the incident and poured through “a large volume of video recordings, police reports, and other materials that have been forwarded to my office.”
“I also convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions as they pertain to this case,” Mitchell said. “I have now completed my review and have made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges against Mr. McAlpin.”
In the body camera video, police are seen pulling up to McAlpin and ordering him down to the ground. He doesn’t appear to immediately comply. The video then shows the officers punching him at least 10 times in the head and shocking him with a stun gun at least four times while yelling: “Get your hands behind your back.”
McAlpin’s attorney said that his client, who is deaf, didn’t know what was going on and could not hear the commands.
“It is our sincere hope that the County Attorney’s Office will respond to what is shown in the video and to the voices in the community who have raised alarms about what is shown in the video and will dismiss all charges against Tyron,” McAlpin’s attorney, Jesse Showalter, told ABC News in a statement on Oct. 14.
ABC News reached out to Showalter for additional comment after the newly released video became available.
Interim Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in a statement on Oct. 16 that the Professional Standard Bureau (PSB) launched an internal investigation shortly after the incident took place.
“Their work is important to ensure all facts are known before drawing any conclusions. I ask for the public’s patience during that process,” Sullivan said.
“I recognize the video is disturbing and raises a lot of questions. I want to assure the community we will get answers to those questions,” he added.
According to Sullivan, the findings of the PSB will be reviewed by himself, as well as by the Office of Accountability and Transparency and the Civilian Review Board “to ensure it is thorough and complete.”
When ABC News asked the Phoenix Police Department if the white man who made the allegedly false allegations was charged, a spokesperson said in a statement that no additional arrests have been made at this point during the investigation.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Even before the pandemic took hold in 2020, Americans drifted away from their social circles, dedicating more and more time to solitary activities. This shift has deepened feelings of social isolation, leaving many individuals longing for connections and companionship that once felt more accessible.
Approximately 20% of American adults are grappling with “daily loneliness,” according to a recent Gallup report, marking the highest level in two years. The U.S. Surgeon General, often referred to as the “Nation’s Doctor,” declared that we are currently facing a serious loneliness epidemic. They also stated that Generation Z — those born from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s — might be the loneliest generation.
Chronic loneliness — prolonged feelings of loneliness and social isolation — affects not only your mental health but also has physical consequences.
“It can do everything from increase rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, increased rates of dementia, and actually decrease how long we live,” Dr. Kelli Harding, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, told “Nightline.”. “It’s as risky for health as, you know, smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”
To combat the loneliness epidemic, professional cuddlers like Jasmine Siemon from Bethesda, Maryland, are leading the way. She uses platonic touch therapy to assist adults dealing with issues such as intimacy, anxiety and loneliness.
Siemon told “Nightline” she always does a consultation to see what made the person interested in touch and cuddle therapy.
“I want to know what their touch history is. There’s a clear understanding of having agency over your body in the session,” she said. “At no point am I going to touch you in a way that you’re not comfortable with or that you’re not curious about, and vice versa. So the boundaries are the rigid boundaries — no touching anywhere a bathing suit covers.”
Siemon acknowledged that while her job may sound unusual to some, she has seen how her work has helped people like Elliot Wallace, who has been having cuddle therapy sessions with Siemon for a year.
“I found myself being nervous in certain cases, whether people were very close, like moving in too close or taking up my space or even being touched,” Wallace said. “And I wanted to find a way to not have that [be] threatening anymore.”
Since Wallace works a lot from home, he says it makes it harder for him to meet people. He sought out Siemon to help him discover who he is, so he can be more open and vulnerable with people.
While Siemon says she has seen how her work has helped some people, consulting a professional cuddler may not suit everyone. Experts warn that if cuddle therapy ends suddenly, it can lead to feelings of abandonment, rejection, loss and even despair.
Professional cuddlers are just one option for coping with loneliness, which can manifest in various ways. Kaari Hostler, a recent college graduate who has moved from the Midwest to New York City, hopes to connect with others, but the 22-year-old isn’t seeking love or romance. Instead, she’s looking to make friends.
Hostler was searching for ways to branch out when she came across “The Girls NYC” online. It’s an exclusive social group for women looking to make friends in their early 20s in New York City.
When attending these events, there is one important rule: you must come alone. Similar groups focusing on finding connections, like dinner parties and running clubs, are rising across the U.S.
“We spend so much time online, we end up isolating ourselves,” Hostler said. “It’s not a substitute for actual human interaction.”
Through social media, people can connect and game with others across continents. TikTok trends like “Get Ready With Me” videos — which show the process of someone getting ready for an event or activity — can help you feel connected to your favorite influencers. There are also dating and friendship apps.
However, these are remote and experts say may not be a good substitute for actual human interaction.
“Gen Z has had it tough,” Dr. Harding said. “They didn’t have a traditional graduation from high school. They have also been part of this great experiment of social media we are learning without guardrails.”
Like Hostler, 38-year-old Quincy Winston struggled to make new friends after relocating to Phoenix with his wife, Latoya, in 2015.
However, a heartfelt conversation with his wife sparked an idea.
“Her girlfriends are very organized, very tight knit,” said Winston. “A lot of my friends at the time were distant,” adding his wife told him that “it’s important for men to seek out friendship and build camaraderie.”
In 2022, Winston formed the Phoenix Professional Black Men’s Friends Group, a space for men to meet locally and find new friends.
“So for me, it’s been a self-discovery,” Winston said. “It’s been a journey. I’ll thank my wife every day for kind of opening up about my own emotions and encouraging other men to support other men.”
Winston’s group now has nearly 200 members, and helps men connect with something he says some men may struggle with.
“I think there’s a term out there,” Winston said. “Emotional intelligence — guys, you have to work at that. What do I need to do in order to be a friend and make friends and have friends and keep friends?”
Experts say loneliness does not discriminate, and could happen to anyone at any age.
At the New Ground Estate in London, 26 residents are making history — living at the first and only co-housing community in the United Kingdom dedicated to women aged 50 and over.
Some have likened this housing situation to a real-life version of “The Golden Girls,” the TV show that followed four older women living together in Miami.
“It is really beneficial because there’s that sense of community,” Dr. Harding said. “I think it can also reframe how we think about aging.”
Everyone at New Ground has their own flats but there are also communal living spaces — all run by the ladies themselves.
Jude Tisdall is 73 years old and moved into the community in 2018.
“There’s a few people here who are of a certain age and are inspirational and are fit and still active and doing things,” Tisdall said. “I think that has made me really, really think about is I’m going to live to the nth degree till I die. And that’s what I’ve got to do.”
Kelsey Klimara, Arturo Ruiz, Sabrina Shanghie and Caroline Kucera contributed to this report.
